Lately, all the spam comments on my blog have been about Chinese food.

I have no idea why.

I learned last round that taking careful notes about exactly how many words I write in each category (Blog, WIP, side projects…) makes me happy, but takes too much time. So although the OCD part of me really wants to keep track of all this, put it in an Excel spreadsheet, and post charts of my progress, it’s not going to happen.

I decided that I am going to do the Wednesday check-ins, but not the Sundays unless I happen to have some time on my hands (not likely) some Sunday.

I noticed that other ROW80 participants have listed as a goal to check-in and support the others, and I’m going to make sure I do that too. I don’t think I can click every link each Wednesday, but I’ll click five or ten or more and leave at least a brief comment. I know how encouraging it is to me to see comments!

I am rearranging my goals to accept the fact that WIP1 and WIP are not going to be touched until after NaNoWriMo.

I am so very psyched for NaNo! Here’s a link to me if you want to be buddies.

Although I am better about those darn superfluous exclamation points, I still write “till” instead of “until” all the time.

The idea of finishing something is very important. I had got my fingers into too many pies, and this ROW80 is dedicated to tying them all up. Although sometimes I feel like hopping back and forth between stories, it does not generally work well for me to do so. I’ve been making myself open up the Synaesthesia file every time I’m #AmWriting. Last night I finally used the Post-It-Note method to figure out what I needed to include in the last six chapters.

Which reminds me… Synaesthesia, Give Me Your Answer Do, and Audacity’s Chance were all written with chapter breaks as I went, which is different from my usual method of inserting chapter breaks later. But I think I discovered during the 3DayNovel weekend that I do work better putting in breaks as I go. It gives me more structure. So I think when I begin Natasha’s Story for NaNoWriMo, I will put in the chapter breaks as I go.

How’s everyone else doing this round?

Or, if you’re not doing ROW80, please leave me a word of encouragement!

AmyBeth,
Okay, first – so hungry. The General Tso’s looks really good and it doesn’t help that it’s still two hours until dinner. LOL. But congrats on extending the list to include all that you’re doing. I keep track as well, which really helps some days when you get to the end and go, where did all that work go? I am also wondering about posting twice a week also for ROW but figure I’ll try two until at least new week – like the approach of posting once a week and touring around to the links twice (I think I can keep that up a little better). Will come back to your NANO (today the sight doesn’t seem to let me add buddies – looks like they’re working on changes for Nov 1st.
~Kate

I never get Chinese food spam (even on my Chinese food blogs!), although I do get other kinds of spam in Chinese.

I never thought of a dare/challenge as scratching that OCD itch… but it explains SO much.

As for chaptering… I like to put them in where it feels natural, but I’ll go back and readjust them at the end sometimes too. (And sometimes I don’t number them I just put in “Chapter ??” and continue on.)

Chapters – I don’t number them because never know when I’m going to insert one because left out a scene somewhere. But that comes from being a pantster. I trying to learn how to plot now. Looking forward to nano again this year as well. Once they turn on the writing buddies deal, will add you. Good luck with your goals.

I don’t mine renumbering after it’s written, but if I end up with a chapter that loses half its content in edits, I don’t want to leave it with vastly different chapter lengths. That’s why I used to just write, and then look for good places to break the chapters later.
But with a few recent projects, I broke the chapters as I went, and it turned out working a lot better for me. The story flowed better, and I “got on with it”. Now let’s see how that works with a full length novel!